Born at Montreal, Quebec in 1901, son of Thomas Young (1863-1902) and grandson of Thomas Young (1827-1873), he was brought up by his aunt and uncle who moved to Winnipeg in 1907. He attended Gladstone School and graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1923 with a gold medal in history and a Rhodes Scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. On 22 August 1925, he married Mary G. H. Moody. Later that year, he went to Africa with the education branch of the British Colonial Service, serving at Achimota College in British West Africa until 1928, when he returned to Winnipeg. In 1929 he became the first headmaster of Ravenscourt School, and it was his vision that shaped the school in its first decade. An officer in the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders from 1937, he was mobilized in 1939 and went overseas as a Captain with the Sixth Infantry Brigade, Second Canadian Division, in November 1940. On 19 August 1942 he was killed leading “B” Company of the Camerons in the Dieppe raid. He was buried at Hauteville-sur-mer, France.